Back in the good ol' days they would've sent the KGB after them for something like this. (Smiles to images of big russians in black trenchcoats with automatic rifles busting in on some spammer and shooting him before he can even open his mouth.)
Three Words: Investors Best Interest. Nowadays, the person attempting the hostile takeover needs to convince the shareholders that its in their best interest for them to own majority. At that point, its a big publicity battle, as can be observed right now with Oracle and Peoplesoft.
" In the long run Microsoft will simply license the patent."
There is no law that states a company HAS to license a patent to someone. In fact, that is one of the reasons why patents exist, to protect a company against a monopoly. While M$ will offer them a check with so many 0's that nobody could refuse it.....i would love to see this company laugh at them and say fuck off.
"i had a friend who recently turned to the dark side and now boasts that his circle of friends include the biggest spammers in the world. "
Could you please post his name and address? You don't have to do anything to him, I'm sure Slashdot will take care of it. Its not like it would be bad...we'd just be giving him the opportunity to receive many great offers on products he may be interested in.
I swear, the Gamepro article had like, three sentences about the abduction and the rest was just hyping the game. This is just another PR move. I guess they should change the name of the site to "Slashdot: Ads for nerds. Stuff we get paid for." And I'm not trolling, but this is a pretty sad 'article'. Its a press release, call it that for gods sake.
This whole ad campaign will be about as effective as the War on Drugs campaign. Especially that one ad where it was like "if you buy drugs, you're supporting terrorism". I hope the MPAA is stupid enough to play the same card and make an "if you pirate movies you're supporting terrorism" ad. I'd be curious to see statistics after this campaign runs as to usage of filesharing networks and how much it will (inevitably) increase as more people find out "What? You mean I can download free music AND movies?!?!?!?!"
Better yet, I hope people at home spoof them and make their own 'anti-piracy' commercials and distribute them. That will gain a helluva lot more hype than just putting the original commercials on Kazaa.
"Do you have the contract signed with Apple to encode your songs with their DRM? I would be happy to pay a measly $40 and another measly 9% to have someone handle the business side of things with Apple (and others.)"
Which is why I don't get why Apple doesn't do exactly that. Why not take the $40 'entrance-fee' and then the 9% or w/e they want and make even MORE money? The only problem there would be that Apple would have a ridiculous amount of control unless they let everybody in who paid. Think of it as a music store with the power of Clear Channel at that point. Apple gets paid by someone to NOT have another band on there? *poof* they're gone, unless Apple leaves the doors completely open to everybody who wants to go for it (which I think is very likely given that this is Apple).
This is a good start I guess. Ultimately its still like having a label though. The artists should be able to go straight to Apple and take out yet another comapany that wants to play middleman.
The big plus side about this though is that it really starts to bring Darwin to the music scene. If a song sucks, less people will buy it if there's better stuff out there. Obviously there are still kinks in this system, but its a HELLUVA lot better than before where if you weren't with a label, NOBODY would hear/buy your music. This is definitely progress although it still kinda gives me a feeling of 'one step forward, two steps back' with CDnow being the middleman instead of the labels.
God, I'd do ANYTHING to have a Battle Royale video game. Especially if I could play the fat kid with the crossbow. I can't help but laugh every time I picture him jumping out of the trees to attack the girls. Anybody know where I can buy a DVD copy of this movie?
Yes yes, we all know this. But what I want is a large poster to put on my wall that shows this years 2003 IBM legal team, in all their blue-suited glory. Maybe with them standing atop Daryl's corpse.
"Is there any benefit to cable customers? Is this basic program guide any different from the basic program guide that's built in to all digital cable boxes?"
Yes, because now they will be able to tie it in to the profile that M$ is keeping on you so that they can 'target' the ads more effectively and thus charge more for placement.
Husband: "Lets watch some TV dear, I just got the new M$ TV installed yesterday." Wife: "Ok, lets see how it works." Husband: "Well, lets pop up the digital assistant and see if he can help."
Clippy: "I see you're trying to watch TV, would you like me to:"
-Turn on the latest M$ sponsored show? -Show some special offers brought to you by our third party affiliates? -Resume the showing of "Hot Gay Clowns III: Three Cock-Ring Circus"?
"At the touch of a button, an interface appears over the watch that is about the same size of a standard PDA screen. "
This is exactly what I believe will happen once we have holographic displays. Right now something like a watch can only have a display that is limited to the dimensions of the watch itself. Once we can create a holographic display, suddenly the size of the watch is no longer an issue. I wonder how far away this technology is though.
You should check out some of the player run Shard for UO. Many of them require an application to be filled out and you are either accepted or denied. They also strictly enforce RPing on the server and you will simply be banned if you don't. What the MMORPG world needs is more options in terms of game engines that let people craft their own games. Neverwinter Nights was an excellent start, but we need to keep em coming.
"What I would love to see is a GT-like game that allows you to learn to drive a normal car in everyday circumstances. It applies the traffic rules and after you've driven around for, say, 30 minutes tells you if you are good enough to drive a real car."
Then just add in the ability to break those rules, and to car jack other people and take their cars, and you have an even better game! Seriously though, I think the ultimate driving game would combine the realism and graphics of GT3 with the gameplay of GTA:VC
"But this is local tracking, not global tracking, and that makes all the difference. It doesn't lend itself to big databases, cross-correlation, et cetera, and all the big evil things which are made possible with global tracking; it just helps you keep track of your own stuff."
But if you think about it...(and granted I didn't RTFA) how hard would it really be connect all these 'local' tracking stations to a big database, and cross-correlate all of them?
"Some wealthy do-gooder could pay amazon to use this feature to the public's benefit, linking words such as "porn" to self-help books about sex-addiction and "bomb-making" to a similar book about dealing with pent-up anger..."
Which public would this be benefiting? The one that thinks porn and explosives are "Bad Things" and should be banned? I would be extremely offended if when I clicked on a link for porn it took me to the listing of a book telling me that porn was bad and I had an addiction to it.
If you search for something, you shouldn't be given results based on someone elses moral beliefs. You should be given results based on your search and be your own judge as to whether you "have an addiction to porn" or "have pent up anger issues". Mod the parent up as troll for I lack the modpoints to do so.
"Amazon.com has their "Look inside this book" feature on a lot of titles, which lets you read a scanned excerpt of the book and see what you think. Just like in a real fucking bookstore!"
Except in a 'real fucking bookstore' I can look through the table of contents to see if it has chapters that may sound interesting, and I can then read a little bit from a section of MY CHOOSING. I don't care what amazon wants me to see from a book, and yes I realize some is better than none, but the real beauty of a bookstore is to flip around the entire book with no restrictions and see if you like the whole thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Three Words: Investors Best Interest. Nowadays, the person attempting the hostile takeover needs to convince the shareholders that its in their best interest for them to own majority. At that point, its a big publicity battle, as can be observed right now with Oracle and Peoplesoft.
There is no law that states a company HAS to license a patent to someone. In fact, that is one of the reasons why patents exist, to protect a company against a monopoly. While M$ will offer them a check with so many 0's that nobody could refuse it.....i would love to see this company laugh at them and say fuck off.
Could you please post his name and address? You don't have to do anything to him, I'm sure Slashdot will take care of it. Its not like it would be bad...we'd just be giving him the opportunity to receive many great offers on products he may be interested in.
That doesn't mean it belongs on Slashdot.
Which is why I don't get why Apple doesn't do exactly that. Why not take the $40 'entrance-fee' and then the 9% or w/e they want and make even MORE money? The only problem there would be that Apple would have a ridiculous amount of control unless they let everybody in who paid. Think of it as a music store with the power of Clear Channel at that point. Apple gets paid by someone to NOT have another band on there? *poof* they're gone, unless Apple leaves the doors completely open to everybody who wants to go for it (which I think is very likely given that this is Apple).
The big plus side about this though is that it really starts to bring Darwin to the music scene. If a song sucks, less people will buy it if there's better stuff out there. Obviously there are still kinks in this system, but its a HELLUVA lot better than before where if you weren't with a label, NOBODY would hear/buy your music. This is definitely progress although it still kinda gives me a feeling of 'one step forward, two steps back' with CDnow being the middleman instead of the labels.
You could donate to the IBM Legal Defense Fund...........o wait....
Yes yes, we all know this. But what I want is a large poster to put on my wall that shows this years 2003 IBM legal team, in all their blue-suited glory. Maybe with them standing atop Daryl's corpse.
Great, I'll have to remember this for when the BSA comes knocking. O wait...do you have to pay for their software first? Crap...o well...
Yes, because now they will be able to tie it in to the profile that M$ is keeping on you so that they can 'target' the ads more effectively and thus charge more for placement.
Wife: "Ok, lets see how it works."
Husband: "Well, lets pop up the digital assistant and see if he can help."
Clippy: "I see you're trying to watch TV, would you like me to:"
-Turn on the latest M$ sponsored show?
-Show some special offers brought to you by our third party affiliates?
-Resume the showing of "Hot Gay Clowns III: Three Cock-Ring Circus"?
Wife: "Honey......?"
This is exactly what I believe will happen once we have holographic displays. Right now something like a watch can only have a display that is limited to the dimensions of the watch itself. Once we can create a holographic display, suddenly the size of the watch is no longer an issue. I wonder how far away this technology is though.
Then just add in the ability to break those rules, and to car jack other people and take their cars, and you have an even better game! Seriously though, I think the ultimate driving game would combine the realism and graphics of GT3 with the gameplay of GTA:VC
But if you think about it...(and granted I didn't RTFA) how hard would it really be connect all these 'local' tracking stations to a big database, and cross-correlate all of them?
Which public would this be benefiting? The one that thinks porn and explosives are "Bad Things" and should be banned? I would be extremely offended if when I clicked on a link for porn it took me to the listing of a book telling me that porn was bad and I had an addiction to it.
If you search for something, you shouldn't be given results based on someone elses moral beliefs. You should be given results based on your search and be your own judge as to whether you "have an addiction to porn" or "have pent up anger issues". Mod the parent up as troll for I lack the modpoints to do so.
Except in a 'real fucking bookstore' I can look through the table of contents to see if it has chapters that may sound interesting, and I can then read a little bit from a section of MY CHOOSING. I don't care what amazon wants me to see from a book, and yes I realize some is better than none, but the real beauty of a bookstore is to flip around the entire book with no restrictions and see if you like the whole thing.